Power Failure: The Rise and Fall of an American Icon

As a long-time analyst of GE, I can say this is the most pertinent, and accurate account of the company. Extremely readable also.

I found this to be a fascinating history of GE at the top CEO management level, for several reasons. It discusses the history of GE CEOs, their decisions, their characters, their successes and eventually, their disastrous failures. The majority of the book discusses Jack Welch, Jeff Immelt, and their final successors in 2017 - 2020. At one time, GE management was the envy of corporate America. Several former senior GE executives became CEOs of large corporations such as Boeing.The book also discusses the issue of corporate governance — that is, how Boards of Directors are SUPPOSED to represent the interests of the shareholders and not those of the CEO or management team in general. Board members are supposed to question the CEO and not merely rubber-stamp his proposals. That didn’t happen at GE, as it usually the case at most US companies. In practice, the CEO selects the people he wants on the Board. As Warren Buffett so pithily puts it in page 608, “When seeking directors, CEOs don’t look for pit bulls. It’s the cocker spaniel that gets taken home.”The book also criticizes American business schools. As put in page 724, “ … Jeff [Immelt’s] tenure as CEO was another example of the hubris that comes with an MBA in general, and the Harvard MBA in particular. Jeff Immelt is Exhibit A for the failure of a Harvard MBA to perform well as a CEO.” Overall, I thought that the most interesting chapter was Chapter 28 “Who Lost GE?” There is no simple explanation. Suffice it to say that in the last 20 years of its existence, GE management did almost everything wrong.To a certain extent, I felt I could personally identify with what happened at GE. I worked for a much smaller company — 500 to 1000 employees, depending on the state of the economy. For the first 20 or so years, I truly felt that the management tried to do what was best for the company as a whole. Then the old generation gradually retired and a new generation took over. At first I didn’t recognize any great changes or maybe I didn’t want to face reality. Eventually, I concluded that they were managing the company for their personal short-term bonuses. I finally quit after more than 30 years with the company. Two years later it was sold to a conglomerate.That brings up another subject. Almost all the people discussed in the book worked for GE for 20 or 30 years. They were “lifers.” That’s another characteristic I can relate to. I think it’s all gone now. I sometimes talk to young people about their careers. Most of them can’t imagine working for the same company for 20 or 30 years or even longer. With the seemingly perpetual rounds of layoffs in most companies today, I guess they would never have the chance to work for the same organization for that long. In my opinion, this approach just completely eliminates what I would call “corporate memory.” The same mistakes get repeated. There is no body of historical knowledge of what works and doesn’t work.Enough of my personal philosophizing! Read the book. It will tell you a lot about America’s business and economic path that has been taken over the past 20 or 30+ years.

Book is great, a fascinating history of one of the greatest companys of the world. Always on the cutting edge of technology. It's too bad it had to be run by humans. I hope it comes back.

I joined GE the same day as JRI became the GE CEO — Sep 10, 2001. I have watched and suffered the GE went down the hill under JRI’s leadership. As the GE’s history explained by this book, it took multiple generations of great leaderships to grow the GE into the American Icon…. And it just needs one terrible leadership to bring GE into the hell.

Power Failure is a fabulous read. The basic plot is a history of GE. The subplot is the unrelenting cultural and business lessons of the 1980s, 1990s, and 2000s. These two plots merge with the underlying reality that there was a huge personal cost of working in a culture that appears to have focused on anything and everything except managing the responsibility of having a family.At 816 pages, Power Failure is a huge commitment. It is too long to be a required textbook in an MBA program but should be anyway. An entire semester devoted to this single book would provide an MBA class enough business lessons for a degree. There is much to be learned about general management and board of director management. Throw in the mergers, acquisition and divestitures and one has an extraordinary book about corporate growth and the ramifications of such growth over ensuing decades.With the lessons at GE are the stories involving so many of the legends of the period. There were those who saw the GE nightmare years and years before it became apparent to either GE management or Wall Street. The reactions of the CEOs of GE to criticism are quite revealing.Finally, the cost to the quality of life as the result of the GE culture comes through loud and clear. It would have added to the book if the author had interviewed many of the children of those who chose to spend their entire careers in management at GE.Power failure is a very worthy read.

Very good book. Not one paragraph without errors. It made it difficult to read. But enjoyed it even with the very poor quality of the Kindle.

This book is an excellent history of GE from its early beginnings to the present day. The author is a talented storyteller.Bill does an extraordinary job of describing what happened at GE during Jack’s tenure, as well as what happened during Jeff’s. He rarely editorializes, but simply tells the stories and lets readers arrive at their own conclusions. He tells the stories through the words of the people that were there. Through these stories the reader understands why Jack was so successful and Jeff‘s record was more uneven. To paraphrase one senior executive: “the Board let Jack make the decisions and his were largely good ones and the Board also let Jeff make the decisions and his were largely bad ones”. That single sentence may well sum up the whole story of GE during the years of Jack and Jeff.Bill also guides the reader to the inevitable conclusion that the Board of Directors’ malfeasance and lack of oversight were inexcusable. They must also bear some responsibility for the decline of GE.As a former executive of GE I thought Bill’s assessment was honest and accurate. But for me, on a personal level, it was also very sad. When I tell people I spent the majority of my career at GE during much of Jack’s tenure, and the first few years of Jeff’s, I have to add that “I worked for GE when it was a great company“.

Book was well researched and written. Having started in the GE FMP program in 1978 out of college I knew it wasn't the right fit for me, but loved the experience. I agreed with most of the author's points.

Interessante e mostra a história da GE do início aos dias atuais. Podemos tirar muitos aprendizados sobre resiliência dos negócios. Recomendo!

I worked at GE Capital for 2 years.I cannot tell you just how much political BS there was when I worked there. Simply unbelievable.Jack Welch being immortalized as the so-called "CEO on the Century?" ...Gimme a break.Welch built a house of cards which was bound to fail (as it ultimately did). Worst CEO of the century. He manipulated the books ad nauseum. He (and others) manipulated the stock from their own gain, and Wall Street bought it all, drinking the Welch Kool-Aid. I never did.I'm giving this book a 5-star review only because the author truly captured the story of GE. All the CEO's from Welch forward have been disasters.

A phenomenal account of the tenure of Jack Welch and Jeff Immelt, both very different CEOs. Very personable, with exacting interviews into the two men who created a behemoth and saw it through the financial crisis before seeing it nose dive through corporate negligence. Five stars.

Am entertaining book that provides valuable insights into leadership and business cycles. As expected - very well written. Worth the purchase!

Great read